This story, translated from the French, is the oral testimony given by Sophie on the occasion of her baptism in the Lagny church on May 1 2011.
I am a Christian and my name is Sophie. I have two brothers and one sister. My maternal grandparents were Polish Catholics and very devout and they were the ones who most often spoke to me about God and Jesus. When I was a little girl, my mother used to take us to Christmas or Easter Mass in Meaux cathedral, just behind where we lived.
When I was old enough for catechism and Sunday Mass, I went without any great enthusiasm, mostly to keep my mother happy. Everything in that huge, grey cathedral seemed sad to me; the sound of the organ more impressive than beautiful; the priest’s sermon which I listened to without much understanding. Only the magnificent central stained glass window caught my attention. It portrayed the crucifixion of Jesus.
At the age of thirteen, after my first communion, I went with my grandparents on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. For a week I was immersed in a crowd of worshippers whose prayers and songs and vigils made a big impression on me, as if Jesus and Mary had become very close to me.
When I was sixteen I learnt that my mother was suffering from multiple sclerosis, from which she was to die eighteen years later in 2001. Throughout those years, my relationship with Jesus was a matter of praying, lighting a candle every now and again, and looking to God for things that never really materialised.
When the Lord took my mother, I found it so unfair that I turned my back on him. At the time my faith was very fragile…and then I began to doubt the very existence of God. I could no longer enter a church or go to the cemetery without reliving the nightmare in which I saw my mother just as she was when she died, paralysed and incapable of speech. Anger and resentment had come between me and God.
In 1996 I met my future husband, Jacques. Then in 2006 an Irish family moved into our street, and I got to know Rachel, then Philip the Pastor of this church, as we walked our respective children to school. There was something about this couple I couldn’t quite put my finger on, something different. At the time I was looking for somebody to collect Vincent after school, and the principal of the nursery school advised me to ask Rachel.
She agreed immediately and wouldn’t take any payment. I was embarrassed: giving without asking for anything in return isn’t something you expect. So what was it about Rachel and Philip that was so visibly different? Their accent? Certainly! Their three lovely little girls? That, too…but what really makes them different is the grace of God in their lives that produces the care, the availability, the listening ear and the love they have for their neighbours.
I was curious to see what their church was like, and I introduced myself through the pancakes I make for Christmas and other festivals in Lagny. Then in spring 2008 Philip invited me to ‘la bonne franquette’. On these evenings the church looked like a large restaurant to which everybody was invited, and I was struck by the relaxed atmosphere in which questions about God were asked and answered.
So the following Sunday I decided to go to the Easter service and found myself in a living and joyful church. My heart beat faster and tears came to my eyes at the genuine way in which everybody prayed, sang and spoke. I had the impression my whole body was being released from all those years far away from God. I felt the relationship these people had with the Lord was available to me as well. This is what I asked for a few days afterwards, when in the church kitchen with Anne-Marie and Sandra I experienced the Spírit of God coming upon me and accepted him into my life.
I have now been coming to the church for two years. For the first year I was in the home group alternating between the homes of Francis and Anne-Marie and Catherine and Jean-Louis. Since the start of this year I have been in the new group in Rachel and Philip’s with the four other women who have children in the school at Conches.
Today represents another stage in my journey as, through my baptism, I commit my whole life to God. I am to be immersed in the water to be identified with Jesus, leaving behind my former life, laying aside all the wrong things I have done and then, like Jesus rising again after his sufferings on the cross, I am going to come up out of the water to begin a new life with the Lord.
I want to give him all my confidence and love so that each day I may be worthy of him, deepen my faith in him and rest on him without ever being disappointed. I am a branch, he is my vine; may I abide patiently in him so that I may bear fruit until the day I die, when like all believers I will go to be with Jesus, where a place has been reserved for me to live eternally at his side.